before today, baby sister sat through all of her doctor’s visits all smiley and happy. she was just too little to understand that at the end of her appointment, she was going to get stabbed with those long needles.  i knew she’d get it one day.  that day is today.

i went to baby’s appointment with her this morning.  she goes to a different doctor than i do (i know it’s weird — ask mommy about it) so i didn’t recognize the building from the outside.  but when we entered the waiting room, i knew it looked familiar.  i had been there once before.  i  nervously told mommy that i wanted to leave, but she promised me that i wouldn’t get any shots.  i believed her.  so i just played on the slide in the waiting room.  it was fun.

when we went into the exam room, i found a basket of toys to play with and a book to read.  i hung out and played while we waited.  a couple of times, i told baby that we should go, but she didn’t listen.  mommy undressed her and put her on the crinkly paper, and she SCREAMED.  i told her to escape while she had the chance, but she didn’t listen.

the nurse managed to measure baby sister through all that screaming.  here are her stats:

• weight:  15 pounds 2 ounces (35 %ile)
• length:  26.5 inches (77 %ile)
• head circumference:  41.7 cm (25%)

when the doctor came in, i tensed up.  again, i asked mommy if we could leave, but she said no.  and she was saving her best ammo for that moment — “words”!  she let me play 14 games of hanging with friends all by myself.  i even managed to guess 2 words correctly!   a 14% success rate won’t set any records, but not bad for a 2 year old, right?

that was enough to get me through the rest of the appointment.  i barely even  noticed when mommy put baby sister back on the exam table for her 3 shots and yucky syrup.  baby sister noticed, though — she started crying as soon as her body touched that crinkly paper.  maybe she’ll listen to me next time when i tell her to get outta there.

you remember that baby sister has big kidneys, right?  so she’s getting regular ultrasounds until the issue resolves itself.  she went back to stanfurd today for one of those kidney checks.

it was her 5th kidney-related procedure so far — 3 ultrasounds, the VCUG, and the x-ray.  and that’s not even counting all the ultrasounds that she had before she was born!  she is getting to be a pro at it.

as expected, everything checked out just fine.  it’s actually not her kidneys that are big, but the collecting system on the left side.  she has hydronephrosis — about a grade 1.5 (4 is the worst).  the doctor said that it won’t cause long-term kidney damage and that there is nothing to be concerned about or even to watch out for.  all she has to do is go back for another ultrasound in 9 months.

while she was there, they took her stats.  she weighs 14 pounds 13 ounces (42 %ile) and is 26 inches long (77 %ile).  her blood pressure is a little high, though.  nothing to be concerned about, but we’ll keep an eye on it.  if i had to worry big kidneys and a flat head, i would have high blood pressure too.  poor baby sister.

what kind of monster is flat-headed, toothless, and hairy?  baby sister!  haha, i’m so funny.

baby sister went to her 4 month checkup today.  her flat head is less flat, which is good.  the doctor said that she probably has a mild case of blah blah blah and not blah blah blah.  actually, she said it’s probably positional plagiocephaly, and not craniosynostosis, but that’s the same as “blah blah blah” to me.  what that means is that baby’s head is probably flat because she lays on the same side all the time.  hopefully she doesn’t have prematurely closed sutures, and hopefully she doesn’t need surgery.  she is gonna see a specialist just to be sure.

here are her stats:

• weight:  13 pounds 3 ounces (41 %ile)
• length:  24.75 inches (68 %ile)
• head circumference:  40.0 cm (24 %ile)

just like me at my 4 month visit, baby sister  drank some yucky medicine, got two shots, cried for two seconds, and then was done.  unlike me, she doesn’t have any teeth yet.  i already had two teeth by the time i turned 4 months old!  yay, i have her beat in the teeth category.  (she had me on hair from the moment she was born.)

i had such a great weekend.  so when mama got me all ready to go out today, i thought the fun was going to continue.  we drove to a building that looked vaguely familiar, but i couldn’t remember why.  i got to press the buttons on the elevator, and that was fun.  i got to watch the fish swim in the big tank, and that was fun.  i got to put antibacterial lotion on my hands, and that’s always fun.  but as soon as we got to the exam room, it all came back to me.  i took one look at the crinkly white paper and i bolted for the door.  but it was too late.  i was trapped.

the nurse asked mama to undress me, but i  wanted to get outta there.  i kicked and squirmed so that mama couldn’t remove my pants, and i pinned my arms down at my sides so that she couldn’t get my shirt off.  but she’s too good.  i thrashed around like a wild shark, so the nurse had a really hard time taking my measurements.  after a few tries, she gave up, but here’s what she wrote down:

• weight: 26 lbs. 7 oz. (30 %ile)
• height: 33.25 inches (21 %ile)
• head circumference: 49.7 cm. (77 %ile)

i can’t believe that i only grew 0.75 inch in the past six months.   my doctor couldn’t believe it either — he thinks that the nurse measured me wrong.  i guess i was just too squirmy.  either that, or i’m shrinking.

i screamed the whole time the nurse was measuring me.  i screamed through most of my check up with the doctor.  and i screamed while the nurse was giving me my shots.  but as soon as mama put my shirt back on me, i knew it was over.  and i was happy again.

i think the doctor said that i don’t have to get any more shots for 2 years.  did i hear that right?

baby sister had her two-month checkup today.  we know that everything is a-ok with her kidneys, but mama had two more things to discuss with the doctor.

1. baby sister’s head is flat on one side.  mama has been making her sleep on the other side, but that hasn’t seemed to help.  mama thinks that she might need surgery to fix it.
2. baby sister has really sensitive skin, and she seems to be allergic to dada (and lots of other things).  mama thinks she might have eczema also.

we know that these are common issues in babies, but i never had any of these problems.  girls are just so much trouble.

doc said that baby’s head is mildly flat and she’ll just look at it again at her next checkup.  nothing to be concerned about right now.  hopefully, her flat head will fix itself just like her big kidneys.  and her skin?  just dry — no eczema.  in fact, doc says baby sister looks awesome   and the fact that she is growing well further confirms that her kidneys are just fine.  (apparently, kids with renal problems have growth issues.)

here are her stats:

• weight:  11 pounds 4 ounces (62%ile)
• length:  23.25 inches (72 %ile)
• head circumference: 37.4cm (20%)

the doctor must not have realized that baby sister is a pinhead like i was at her age.  there’s nothing awesome about that.

baby sister looks perfect.  that’s what doc said at her one-month checkup.  she weighed in at 9 pounds 4 ounces (50 %ile) and measured 21 inches long (44 %ile).  her head circumference is 35.5 cm (18 %ile).

umm… i know nobody is asking, but that doesn’t sound so perfect to me.  that sounds more like she’s overweight and has a pinhead.  but like i said, nobody asked me.

oh, and baby sister finally got poked with the big needle today.  she screamed really loudly for two seconds, but that was it.  let’s see how long it takes until she gets traumatized by the sight of the white crinkly paper (on the exam table) like i do…

p.s.  that photo looks familiar.  oh, that’s cuz mama took the same photo of me at my one month checkup!  she sure is good at making sure our private parts aren’t showing.  thanks mama!

i’ve been teaching baby sister my old tricks, and i hafta say, she is  a quick study!

she already learned to poop in the bathtub.  she did that on the first try, and she’s kept it up in all of her baths so far.  she even managed to keep some in the reserves to poop in her towel immediately after her bath!  that’s more of an advanced skill, but she’s already got it down pat

baby sister has also mastered the hourly feedings and the hungry hippo look.  everyone thinks it’s a growth spurt that occurs at 2.5 – 3 weeks, but we are really just keeping our parents on their toes.  just as they are getting used to the feedings every 2-3 hours, we change it up to keep things interesting.

peeing on the doc is something that i didn’t do until i was 4-months old.  (it was revenge for all those shots!)  baby sister doesn’t have the “equipment” to aim and pee on him, but she flooded his scale today!  way to go, baby sister!

i am not the only one that she is learning from, though.  at her last check up, doc instructed her to “eat more and get chubby“.  well… she did!  in 11 days, she gained 28 ounces.  she now weighs 8 pounds 8 ounces (40 %ile, up from 11 %ile).  that’s craaazy!

baby sister takes direction well.  i can’t wait ’til she gets older so i can teach her some really fun things…  mwahahahaha!

baby sister had her two-week checkup today.  when mama was getting her ready to go, i told her “no!  no!  no!”  i warned her about going to the poking place, but she didn’t listen.  baby sister was as content as could be, heading out to get poked.

apparently, our regular nurse wasn’t in today, so there was a stand-in nurse that we’d never seen before.  she didn’t seem to know what she was doing.  the first time she weighed baby sister, she was 5 pounds 14 ounces.  mama said that couldn’t be right (since she was 6-14 at birth), so she weighed her again.  same result.  mama started to panic.  baby sister was withering away!  after baby got all dressed, stand-in nurse wanted to weigh her again.  this time, she weighed 6-1.  better, but still 12% below her birth weight.

when the doc came in, he took one look at baby sister and knew that the nurse didn’t weigh her right.  he calibrated the scale and weighed her again. here are her real stats:

• weight: 6 pounds 12 ounces (11 %ile)
• length: 20.5 inches (59 %ile)
• head circumference: 34 cm (11 %ile)

whew!  that darned stand-in nurse almost gave everyone a heart attack!  baby sister is still not gaining as much as she should (babies should be back to their birth weight by 2 weeks), so the doc told her to eat more and get chubby.  she better listen — doctor’s orders!

when mama brought baby sister home, she was sleeping peacefully.  why weren’t her eyes red and tear-filled, like mine are when i get poked with big needles?  and then it dawned on me, the needles don’t come out until you’re one month old.  baby sister has no idea what’s in store for her.

baby sister had her one-week checkup today.  when i had my first checkup, i was 4 ounces lighter and 0.75″ shorter than i was when i was born.  so i sort of expected the same thing for baby sister.  and because the high bilirubin levels made her so sleepy (sometimes too sleepy to eat), i thought she would have lost even more weight.  but here are her one week stats:

• 6 pounds 11 ounces (17 %ile)
• 19 inches long  (22 %ile)

she is only down 3 ounces from her birth weight.  i guess she packed on some ounces in the hospital because she was getting a supplemental bottle-feeding after every time mama fed her.  and she didn’t shrink at all.  doc said that since she was born so fast, she didn’t have time to get a cone-head — she was born with a perfectly round normal-shaped head.  lucky girl!

the blue lights in the hospital must have done the trick because doc said that baby sister looked good as new.  she didn’t even have to get her heel pricked again.  yay!

i had such a traumatic day today.  i went to the doctor for my 18-month checkup, and i recognized the place as soon as we arrived.  but i was tricked!  instead of my regular nurse, i was greeted by a different nurse who was really young and really pretty.  (i guess my regular nurse was on vacation or out sick or something.)  i thought that since my regular nurse wasn’t there, i could get away clean, without getting stabbed by needles.  but as soon as mama laid me down on the exam table with the crinkly paper, i knew that the pretty nurse had it in for me.  here are my stats:

• weight: 23 lbs. 8 oz. (19 %ile)
• height: 32.5 inches (56 %ile)
• head circumference: 48.5 cm. (70 %ile)

mama couldn’t believe that i only gained ~1 lb. in three months, so i adjusted the scale again, just to be sure.  my height and weight are pretty much stable, but my head sure is getting big!

after taking my measurements, the pretty nurse left the room.  whew!  all done, right?  i kept trying to leave, but mama wouldn’t let my put my pants or shoes back on.  i knew there was something fishy going on, so i tried to hack into my doctor’s computer to see what was in store for me.

then the doctor came in.  he was just doing his usual checkup (ears, tummy, etc.), but i sobbed uncontrollably.  i knew the needles were coming.  even after he had finished, i couldn’t stop crying.  he was trying to have a conversation with mama, but she could barely hear him because i was wailing in her ear.  she was holding me tight, but i couldn’t stop shaking.

when the doctor left the room, i calmed down for a moment.  but then the pretty nurse came back in with a needle.  i knew it!!!  i started sobbing and shaking again.  i didn’t feel the needle go into my arm, so i looked to see what was going on.  but then the nurse reached toward my arm again, and i started screaming again.  it turned out that she was just putting on a band-aid.  oh.  that’s it? i felt sort of silly and stopped crying immediately.  the thought of the needle was 100 times scarier than the injection itself.

i only got one shot today (and it was supposedly an “easy” one), but it was the most emotionally traumatic doctor’s visit of my whole life.  good thing i don’t have another appointment for 6 more months.